It was a lonesome kind of night, which was exactly what Marshall had needed to tip him over the edge, to just surpass the brink of desperation. Rain pitter pattered in rapid rhythmic rotations along the antiquated hotel room windows, tapping its interruptions just consistently enough to drown out the vocals of oncoming vehicles. Which was saying something, considering the pitiful hotel's location among busy city streets.

"Are you okay?"

Marshall bit his bile and nodded, hair dripping perfect pristine patterns on an archaic mattress. Outside wasn't his issue now. He toyed with the thin fabric of the singular bed sheet, it had a dry and scratchy texture to it and felt grainy as old sand lying in his condensed palm. And as for the fact that this was all the bed was decorated with, well, Marshall had neither the money nor reputation to rightfully complain. Still, he found himself doing just that despite his "lowly" ranking. Only bed sheets on a cold night like this? Wasn't the staff weary of clients freezing to death? Weren't frozen clients more liable to sue?

Outside the rainfall had strengthened, though the visual source of such noise remained hidden by raggedy blinds and a fair amount of darkness. All current actions and situations considered, darkness was better than its familial alternative.

"I was speaking to you."

Marshall just then realized that the other man couldn't see him in the fading evening light, or at the very least he couldn't see him well enough to decipher what was or wasn't a nod.

"I'm fine."

The response came out bolder and more aggressive than genuinely intended. Bordering on rude. Marshall quickly chalked it up to nervousness and hoped the other would do the same.

The stranger cleared his throat.

"Really? Because you aren't exactly my usual sort of customer, and I understand if you find that you've changed your- "

"I said I'm fine!"

Definitely rude this time. And unnecessarily so, the man was here for one thing and one thing only, and would likely soon have other clients to attend to. It was only natural that he didn't see any logic in elongating the process.

Marshall's clothes were starting to itch. He was certain that he smelled quite terribly of booze, an aroma that his wife would surely scold him for the very moment he got home. He wasn't an alcoholic quite yet, but if he kept up like this then it was possible he soon would be. Drinking did not a happy family make, and wife and child were soon to leave him if the trend continued. But Marshall didn't really care, at least not as much as he should have. It was hardly about them anyways; they were merely the setting of the play that was his life. Call it callous, he called it adulthood.

As for Marshall's prevailing predicament, he probably should have, could have apologized. It wasn't as if he didn't learn his manners all those years ago when tired teachers were drilling mathematics and ABC's and simplistic history lessons in his cranium.

He could have apologized. But he didn't.

"Well, it certainly doesn't sound like it, considering your tone and all."

So that was it, the stranger was worried that Marshall was going to wuss out. That he was simply a waste of time. Though the notion may have very well been true, Marshall was still offended that the other dare to point it out, that he dare jump to conclusions about a person that he had just met. As if some hooker was in any position to look down on him.

Marshall scoffed, nearly choking on the remnants of city rainwater. Under light he would have resembled something of a drowned rat, too mean to feel sorry for, but too pathetic to loathe. Definitely not romantically or sexually appealing. His hair clung against the nape of his neck awkwardly like wet denim on a portly figure, his nose was red from the cold and likely soon to be dripping. He tugged at his tie and collar in attempt to stop his other problem, the itching. Maybe it was the sheets…

"So what, you're some sort of therapist now?"

The other man laughed. Not a full hearted laugh, but something worth its salt all the same. It was of course too dark to actually see the motion, yet Marshall still knew that his smooth sloped shoulders were jumping up and down in that overly fluffy pink jacket off his, and his mouth would soon fall into a quirky lopsided smile. He knew because these were things he had picked up on from watching him interact with others in the bar, he knew this because it was the reason he was here with him and not someone else. Not that any of these characteristics would make a difference in the long run, he just found it easier to open up to someone with a kinder face.

Little had he known that the face came accompanied with such a snarky can-do attitude.

If he enjoyed attitude, he would have been seeing his wife.

"I might've been."

There was a story to that somewhere but they both knew that this wasn't the time. Marshall had already wasted enough of his time already, even he knew that was on him. The man in the pink coat finally made his move and joined Marshall on the bed, and the lumpy mattress shifted under this newfound weight. When the stranger spoke again, there was something soft inside of him. Like he was talking to a small child, an infant even.

"You're obviously nervous."

Marshall lifted one hand off of the mattress and shifted his soggy tie once more. The bed groaned in retort.

"It's not exactly a regular hobby of mine, if that's what you're asking," he finally admitted, as if it weren't blatant in the way he crossed his legs like a shy schoolgirl and shifted away from the other's companionship, "but I assumed that didn't matter." By this point Marshall was in desperate need of another beer, but this kind of rain wasn't walking weather, and he had just blown his last handful of cash on other matters. Cash he was supposed to have exchanged for groceries.

When he finally did return home, his wife would be kicking his ass on multiple accounts. Such is family life.

"Probably not," the other agreed, "you wouldn't be my first."

Marshall understood that this was an effort at reassurance, but it only succeeded in making him more embarrassed and awkward about the current situation. Never in a million years did he see himself in a position like this, not with another guy, especially not someone that he had to hire. It made him feel pathetic as he dwelled on it. The rain had soaked him so to the bone that even as he sat near enough to share the body heat of another, Marshall felt stricken with unshakable chills and the occasional chattering of teeth.

Then again, maybe it was more than just the rain.

"About that. Before we do… whatever it is that homos do, I've kind of got a request."

The bed creaked again, the distinct noise highly diverse from the pitch of the bold rainstorm commencing outside of the three-star hotel building.

"You have nothing to be worried about. I'll be gentle."

Marshall shivered again. His hair had mostly stopped dripping but the liquid footprints lie present all the same, speckling the sheets as droplets of dye. He really needed to get his hair cut, the mane was growing shaggy even by his standards.

Haircuts…

"That's not at all what I was going to say." By this point Marshall had completely given up on his bargain brand tie, and it lay discarded on the cold bedroom floor, piled on top of itself like a mangled up serpent.

It took Marshall a significant amount of time to realize that the following silence was an invitation to continue. He cracked his knuckles. Probably not a prerequisite, but it was something that he always found himself doing when nervous.

"I was going to say,"

Marshall looked out into blackness, the taste of one too many drinks still vibrant on his tongue, the humming still vividly present in his head. His clothes hadn't gotten too soiled in the little journey, but his thick head of hair was still damp despite the lack of dripping, and it chilled him even more.

"I assume some of you 'prolly don't do that kind of stuff anyways but-please don't kiss me.

The weight on the bed repeated its shifting, squeaking like a newborn child. Slowly but surely the man in the pink jacket was drawing himself closer, but he moved himself in subtle fractions as if easing Marshall into it all.

"An odd request, given your current situation and all. "

Marshall was quick to jump to his own defense, as he often was.

"Look, if you'd just rather me leave, then I will."

He just couldn't make it real like that, not with a guy. Not when he had a wife for Christ's sake. Marshall Lee wasn't about to kiss anyone that he didn't absolutely positively love. Cliché and schoolgirl-ish as it might be, it was his stance on the matter, his own pre-set limitation to the process of lies and infidelity. A stance he was willing to defend even after all the marital conflicts and late night one too many's. One of the few moral high grounds that he was willing to take…ever.

The other nodded wisely, or at the very least Marshall imagined that he was doing so. If he closed his eyes he could almost see that gentle face slowly moving, elevator-style. With that scholarly holier-than thou look that would perfectly match his uppity tone.

"Very well."

Marshall mistakenly deduced this meant that his companion was leaving, with his money no less, until he felt fingers latched around the belt loops of his aged denim, beckoning him closer and then melting into hands, hands warm and comforting in contrast to the frigid night. He sighed. He closed his eyes, leaving the world behind, and let the warmth explode.

He forgot about the rain.

I wrote this sometime last year when I got bored of working on the other one. But why the obsession with portraying their relationship opposite to how it is typically portrayed? Is it personal preference? Is it my obsession with emphasizing that femininity doesn't have to be a submissive role and gay and bisexual males are so much more than the crude stereotype of "rebellious badboy equals top, fem equals bottom"? Or I am just trying to humanize Marshall in a way he rarely is? Tune in next time time to never find out.-Writer